1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the control of multiple wireless radios of differing radio types contained in a single computing device, such as a desktop personal computer, a laptop personal computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), or the like.
2. Description of Prior Art
As shown in FIG. 1, a personal electronic device 10, such as personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), or cellular phone may have disparate radios 11a-11e using disparate radio technologies and communication protocols in an environment having remote wireless devices 14a-14p. The remote wireless devices 14a-14p are accessible through the radios 11a-11e using the disparate radio technologies.
For instance, as shown, the personal electronic device 10 may have a GSM/CDMA cellular radio 11a, a Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) radio 11b, a UWB (Ultra-wide Band) radio 11c, a Bluetooth radio 11d, and another radio 11e that represents future radios having unforeseen but equivalent wireless communication technologies. The remote wireless devices may include: a cellular network 14a; a first access point 14b and a second access point 14c using Wi-Fi technology; a third access point 14d, a fourth access point 14e, a wireless USB hub 14f, a PDA 14g, a first printer 14h, a first computer 14i, an first input device 14j, and a first audio device 14k using UWB technology; a second computer 14l, a second input device 14m, and a second printer 14n using Bluetooth technology; and a remote wireless device 14p that represents future remote wireless devices using unforeseen but equivalent radio technology.
Each individual radio 11a-11e has an individual utility that is used to manage and control the radio. This is largely a result of the local radio types having different physical (PHY) layers, different medium access control (MAC) portions of the data link layer (DLL), and, therefore, different device drivers and different utilities (user interface applications) on the personal electronic device for control of the local wireless radios. Users get confused because they don't know which utilities they are to use to manage and control which radio in order to use a remote wireless device. Thus, there is a need for a single utility that can be used with all of the local radios 11a-11e, to eliminate the need for a user to know what radio technology is being used to access remote wireless devices 14a-14p, and allow the user to identify the remote wireless device that they wish to use without regard to the radio or technology used to access the remote device or the utility used to control the radio.
Further, the software developer that is developing applications that utilize the local wireless radios to connect to remote wireless devices must currently use different command structures to perform similar generic functions (such as find devices, connect/disconnect devices, set security, etc.). Again, this condition is the result of the different radio types having fundamentally different interfaces on multiple levels. Thus, there is a need for a utility that allows developers to treat different wireless radio types generically, and to allow third-party applications to access the functionality of such a utility.